hamskii

Heads up: Deadfire backers are now able to download the PoE PnP Starter Guide from eternity.obsidian.net. I thought I'd create this thread as a place where people can discuss the PnP adaptation and share adventures or any other content they've created for it.

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I'm no longer hosting the PDF or the .tex file on my Dropbox, but I have uploaded the .tex file to pastebin here.

A lot of the player portraits that have been ported over from PoE 1 look like they were just run through some kind of filter rather than redone for Deadfire. Could Obsidian please set up some kind of tool for applying this filter to custom portraits, or at least explain what steps they took (what Photoshop filter settings they used, etc.)?

Could it truly be...new portraits from Jason Seow?!

A bit of background first: as most people (on this forum, at least) will know, Fallout was originally intended to be the first-ever CRPG implementation of the GURPS system. That didn't work out, and so the SPECIAL system was born. In 2004, Obsidian's very own Josh Sawyer began work on his own Fallout RPG. This wasn't the first attempt - he mentions that at the time of writing a fan version had already been created. Another notable attempt was Jason Mical's Fallout Pen and Paper - in 2006 the author also worked at an official d20 Fallout, but that was shelved after the rights to the franchise were sold to Bethesda. Sawyer's Fallout was hosted on a wiki on his personal website, but at some point the wiki was taken down. Its contents were archived by Ausir on another wiki, but eventually got overwritten by other users attempting to build on it (and occasionally rework it completely), until practically nothing left of the original remains...until now. Basically, I went through all the pages on the Fallout PnP wiki, went back through the page history to Ausir's original archive of Sawyer's Fallout, and compiled all those pages into a single PDF document in LaTeX - the idea was to have a record of it somewhere, and to compile it into a single rulebook to present in a more traditional way. I cleaned up some of the formatting, but I wanted to avoid changing the content of the rules. Some of the chapters are very short, and some are empty entirely. Some parts of the rules are several versions ahead of other parts (I got confused about action points, and I think the way that skill levels and possible attributes scale were changed at some point), and other parts are mutually contradictory. I have left all this the way that I found it. I have attached the PDF to this post, and I will host it on my Dropbox for a little while along with the .tex file that was used to make it, in case you want to make an improved version of what I've done, build on it for your own work (provided you give credit to Josh, of course), or whatever else. If you like it, save it - if this search has taught me anything, it's that it's easy for things like this to disappear from the internet! J_E__Sawyer_s_Fallout_Role_Playing_Game.pdf

Some advice from Josh for homebrewing PoE...

So I'm sure everyone knows about PnP PoE coming as part as Deadfire, but in case some people hadn't seen that Josh had spilled one or two beans about it on tumblr... Sure. My goals with the system are to create something that captures the the spirit of the setting and is a more flexible and simulative than something like D&D. Because I know some people will complain about this, let me restate something I earnestly believe: It is within the power of any DM out there to run an A/D&D game in Eora with minimal work. If you want to play A/D&D in the setting of Pillars of Eternity, you don’t have do a whole lot to the core mechanics of most editions to make that viable and fun for your group. So, personally, I’m not interested in making an A/D&D adaptation of the PoE ruleset. Instead, I’m going to make something I think combines a lot of gameplay elements I think are cool and fit the world well. The game will use standard RPG/AD&D dice. All of them. If you buy a standard set of RPG dice at any ol’ RPG shop, you have what you’ll need: d4, d6, d8, d10/100, d12, d20. Most checks will use 2d10 and add modifiers. One of the first things I decided about the TTRPG is that groups should decide on a cause. The cause is the common rallying point for the campaign’s players. It may be a home, a person (a superior, wealthy patron, the young heir to a noble house, etc.), a society, or an accomplishment. The group defines the cause so their characters and stories can have focus. Backgrounds are a large part of character creation: defining the character’s childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and beyond. Backgrounds form the foundational narrative elements and stats that you build up over time. Backgrounds will not be quite as wild and varied as in Burning Wheel, but I’m taking inspiration from both Burning Wheel and Darklands for them. The system is classless and puts a heavy emphasis on a wide variety of skills, from Astronomy and Glazing to Intrigue and Quarterstaff. Skill tests can be obstacle-based, versus, investigative, or seasonal. Obstacle and versus tests are pretty familiar to most people who have played RPGs and focus on static challenges and actively opposed checks. These tests can typically benefit from assistance, which comes in the form of d4s or d6s handed to the player by the assistant (similar to Burning Wheel). Investigative tests give clues and information to the character with the highest relevant test. It’s most useful for mystery scenarios where the focus is not on whether or not you find a clue (often resulting in dead ends in a lot of RPGs), but how you reason out the significance of the clues you find. Most of the inspiration from this comes from the Gumshoe series. Seasonal tests are for downtime activity like research and practice. If you’ve played through Pendragon or Torchbearer’s Winter Phase or Ars Magica’s seasonal activities, that’s what this is like. Characters are intended to grow and change with time, both in personality and mechanically, so downtime is a big element of how a character develops. Advancement happens primarily through experience that characters earn through either adventure sessions or downtime sessions. Adventure experience is spent directly on skills that were used during the session and downtime experience is earned through seasonal activities (reading books, training, studying a magical phenomenon, communing with an adra pillar, etc.). Most of these mechanics come from Ars Magica. Abilities, powers, spells, etc. in the book form the foundation of special tools the players have at their disposal, but I want each power source to have its own guidelines for improvisation, experimentation, and long-term breakthroughs. All of this heavily inspired by Ars Magica. I’m still thinking through the combat mechanics. In a TTRPG, combat pacing is a serious concern, so I’m trying to weigh the pros and cons of various approaches. The math involved will be addition, subtraction, halving/rounding, and doubling. There won’t be Pillars CRPG-style percentages to deal with. Damage is less likely to be about wearing down hit point pools, more about fatigue and discrete wounds that wear characters down. Well, that’s what I have so far, which is insane and way out of scope, but there you have it.

So Josh Sawyer posted this poll Twitter recently, but Twitter poll durations are limited to 7 days max. I thought I might put the same question to the Obsidian community. My own opinion is that it would make a lot of sense to leverage Obsidian's existing relationship with Paizo to release a Pathfinder-compatible PoE setting sourcebook. That said, , and a significant amount of that thought went toward addressing perceived balance issues in games like DnD 3.5e and Pathfinder. It'd be a shame not to preserve that spirit in a tabletop adaptation - PoE is more than just its setting, after all.

Kana, when autoleveled, only knows two level 1 phrases When Sagani is autoleveled, she takes a talent called "Close Shooter" at level 10, which does not appear in the list of talents and is not usually available to players When Sagani is autoleveled, she takes a talent called "Agile Retreat" at level 16, which does not appear in the list of talents and is not usually available to players When Pallegina is autoleveled to level 16, she has 12 unspent skill points Hiravias takes the talent "Bonus 1st level Spell" at level 2, which is not normally possible until level 4 When Hiravias is autoleveled to level 16, he has 42 unspent skill points When autoleveled to level 16, the Grieving Mother takes the power "Tactical Meld" twice Zahua has one less monk ability than he should overall. I think he doesn't gain an ability at level 9 When Maneha is autoleveled to level 16, she has 15 unspent skill points Maneha has one more ability than she should overall Maneha has an ability called "Barbaric Yell", which is not usually available to players Calisca and Heodan do not autolevel Not to jinx things, but hopefully most of these should be easily fixable.

Something interesting I found in the Temple of Eothas in Gilded Vale: So it seems that Harmke is named after some figure from Eothasian scripture, a pilgrim who hoped to redeem himself via Eothas. Interesting that what led to Harmke's (potential) death is his part in the sacking of Cold Morn in retaliation for supporting Waidwen's (and thus Eothas') armies. Does allowing the Devil of Caroc to kill Harmke rob him of his chance for redemption?

Uh...what? Does your distaste for seeing depictions of romance only apply to gay romances, or does it apply to all romances? Cause I don't remember this level of outrage over the gross sex cards in everyone's favourite game, The Witcher 3 The Witcher. I mean, the game literally reduces women to collectible cards where the women pose in absurd sexually provocative poses. Is there some reason I'm missing why those are normal and fine, but a little gay sex scene is so unbearably obscene that anyone who thinks it's a good idea must have "mental issues"? If so, I hope you have a better reason than "the continued existence of gay people makes me feel uncomfortable"...but then again, that's all I've seen from you so far.

You know, I thought this might be the first line of defence. "Cuckold" certainly isn't a new term, but it's undeniable that it has seen a sudden surge in popularity among the alt-right over the last year or so. According to Know Your Meme, its recent usage originated either with GamerGate or 4chan (around the same time). After that, it then traced a (rather telling) path through the alt-right, through Red Pill MRA/PUA types, white supremacists, and most recently to Donald Trump supporters. I think what it shows is that there really is at least some level of overlap between GamerGate and all these other communities on the far right, and that what we are told is some kind of widespread spontaneous awakening against the "SJW menace" (Volourn: "Glad to see you are really starting to losing hard in society. More and more see your sect for what it really is") is actually just the same group of people, shouting the same thing under various guises. The fact that some people consider Numenera to be SJW propaganda didn't stop those same people complaining about the apparent incongruity between Siege of Dragonspear and its source material, despite the intervention of Ed Greenwood. So to those people, it shouldn't be beyond belief that T:ToN could stray away from its source material in terms of tone - if anything, it should be another source of outrage for them, because this was never about the representation of gay or trans people, but about the purity of the product...right? FWIW, I do think it's totally possible that this was an intentional reference to "cuckservatives", given the term's recent increase in popularity. But I also think it's actually possible, if not likely, that it isn't. I haven't got around to reading the novella yet, so I can't and won't attest to whether or not it has an overall "anti-SJW" tone. But then, I don't believe that the inclusion of gay and trans characters in video games is a political statement either. What I'm trying to illustrate is, despite this being just as solid (which is to say, not very) as the entire nontroversy about Siege of Dragonspear, you won't see anywhere near as much the same level of shouting about it - and that's because this whole debacle was never about real-world references, or shoehorning political agendas, or anything like that. It was outrage about video game developers consciously trying to be inclusive in their cast of NPC's. And how sad is that?

So according to RPG Codex posters, the new Torment novella is "very anti-SJW", and has a line in it that appears to be referencing the "cuck" meme (I don't personally see it, but whatever). I'm sure everyone will be appropriately outraged about this apparent popular culture reference making into a video game-related product, right? I'm being sarcastic, obviously. People will ignore it, and excuse it when it does get brought up. Because the problem never was *gasp* popular culture being referenced in video games, it was that it mentioned GamerGate specifically, and that was what made GamerGate engage in a campaign of intimidation with the eventual result of getting the developers to self-censor (which is ironic, given GamerGate's supposed anti-censorship bent, but not surprising). This, on the other hand, supposedly references "SJW's", who despite being alleged to be some sort of shadowy group who controls all media, are the right-wing's favourite punching bag at the moment. EDIT: Not to mention the clear political intent of the writers, if it is so "anti-SJW". God, don't you just hate it when people force political messages (e.g. "gay and trans people exist") down your throats? No doubt any minute now this forum will raise its voice in a chorus of condemnation.

Sounds fitting. Let's reduce Beamdog's *exciting* non-cis experiment to exactly that. It's a rejection of said writer's rubbish, not of gays or transgender people. Right. And although rejecting "said writer's rubbish" just so happens to take the form of actively removing gay or transgender characters from the game, that's just a coincidence - it's not about rejection of gay or transgender people, right?

I haven't played SoD yet, is the transexual NPC in question one of the established NPC's from BG1 and BG2? Or a wholly new character? It's a new smile painted on Mona Lisa's face. It's Han Solo not firing first. It's a poorly written character, and an insult to transsexuals. It's Amber Scott's arrogant cackle. J. "A new smile painted on the Mona Lisa's face", give me a break. It's a new character in a new installment of an old video game franchise who represents something that makes you uncomfortable. That's all. Stop pretending that your arguments are based in some kind of deep-rooted concern for transgender people (not transsexuals), and admit that what you really want is to not have to be reminded that this group of people exists. Oh wait. You already did. Sounds fitting. Let's reduce Beamdog's *exciting* non-cis experiment to exactly that.

The only thing that needed doing as of February was the cover art? Somehow I don't think this novella is ever coming.

I recently played through Planescape: Torment, and while it's absolutely one of the best stories that I've played through in a video game, I really didn't enjoy its handling of romances. Annah (and to a lesser extent, Fall-from-Grace) falling for the player unprompted isn't organic story-building, it's an example of what Chris Avellone calls ego-stroking. Annah and Grace were designed to be a Betty and Veronica pair, a kind of harem for the player. I consciously resisted romance options because that's not the sort of thing I play CRPG's for, and that's still the outcome I got. PS:T's handling of female characters in general is pretty terrible, actually. Morte, although a great character, sometimes comes a bit close to being that player around the table, the one who leers after all the female NPC's or makes female players feel uncomfortable. Giving that kind of a player a voice as an CNPC strikes me as a bad move. I stumbled across this design document from the very early stages of development yesterday. The document straight-up says, "Sure, you may be a fat dateless loser in real life, but in Last Rites [PS:T's name early on], you get the women and respect you'e always craved". Part of the headings in the game's vision statement is "babes, as in, "TRUCKLOADS OF". It says, The message is clear: this game isn't for girls. Heterosexual men only need apply. Fortunately, PoE is much better in that regard - does anyone really think the quality of the story would be improved if Sagani, Pallegina, or Grieving Mother wore skimpy rags instead of armour? But if romances were included in PoE 2, they'd have to be handled very carefully so as not to wander into that weird, ego-stroking, power-fantasy harem territory. What a complete load of garbage and total bashing of Torment. You are totally clueless. Torment isnt my favorite game and ive only completed it once. But i didnt even know there was romances. So you are just lying through your teeth about it being prompted on the player. Typical liberal facist feminist agenda propaganda nonsense. Glad to see you are really starting to losing hard in society. More and more see your sect for what it really is Way to make your side of the argument look reasonable. I think you mean fascist, by the way, but personally I can't see the connection between disliking how romances are handled in a particular video game and radical authoritarian nationalism. For future reference:

Source? I think it was referring to this interview. Specifically, I don't find anything particularly objectionable in anything she said here (I've spoken about my problems with how women are depicted in another IE game here), but I'm sure that given how "reasonable" people here can be (calling anyone identified as a "SJW" a nazi, for example), I'll be in a minority.

I recently played through Planescape: Torment, and while it's absolutely one of the best stories that I've played through in a video game, I really didn't enjoy its handling of romances. Annah (and to a lesser extent, Fall-from-Grace) falling for the player unprompted isn't organic story-building, it's an example of what Chris Avellone calls ego-stroking. Annah and Grace were designed to be a Betty and Veronica pair, a kind of harem for the player. I consciously resisted romance options because that's not the sort of thing I play CRPG's for, and that's still the outcome I got. PS:T's handling of female characters in general is pretty terrible, actually. Morte, although a great character, sometimes comes a bit close to being that player around the table, the one who leers after all the female NPC's or makes female players feel uncomfortable. Giving that kind of a player a voice as an CNPC strikes me as a bad move. I stumbled across this design document from the very early stages of development yesterday. The document straight-up says, "Sure, you may be a fat dateless loser in real life, but in Last Rites [PS:T's name early on], you get the women and respect you'e always craved". Part of the headings in the game's vision statement is "babes, as in, "TRUCKLOADS OF". It says, The message is clear: this game isn't for girls. Heterosexual men only need apply. Fortunately, PoE is much better in that regard - does anyone really think the quality of the story would be improved if Sagani, Pallegina, or Grieving Mother wore skimpy rags instead of armour? But if romances were included in PoE 2, they'd have to be handled very carefully so as not to wander into that weird, ego-stroking, power-fantasy harem territory.

There is relatively little gore (the camera can be zoomed to quite far away, and the overworld characters aren't too detailed anyway), but the text descriptions of scenes can be quite graphic sometimes if you have an active imagination, and the story is very, as you describe it, "dark and conflict-rich". Benevolent/honest/diplomatic playstyles are supported (a Priest of Eothas or a Kind Wayfarer Paladin, for example) if not always rewarded, and there is an achievement for (relative) pacifism - but it is an achievement, meaning that it is considered a challenge to play that way. As with most RPG's, the primary way you interact with the world is at end of the sword. If you're conflict-averse, even with fictional conflict, then it might be a struggle to find a story-rich RPG that you would enjoy. Conflict is the foundation of story, after all. Games do exist, like Divinity: Original Sin, that are not so strong on story but extremely fun RPG's nonetheless. EDIT: I should also say that there is no XP for combat (there is some XP for filling out the Bestiary, however, which is done through combat). However, avoiding fights will likely limit the amount of exploration you will be able to do, which it sounds like for you is very important, so... EDIT 2: As of the 3.0 patch, there is also a "Story Time" difficulty, which drastically reduces the difficulty of combat. I think the enemy composition is the same as in Normal mode, though, so if you're looking for the difficulty with the fewest enemies, "Easy" is probably best.

I think this is the proposed explanation I like the most so far. Not sure how you'd square it up with the Iroccian calendar being only 150 years old, though. I also don't know how much energy it'd take to change the orbital period of an Earth-sized planet by 3 hours (assuming that a second is as long as it is in real life, and assuming that Eora is Earth-sized, which you could actually probably calculate from the falling animation from Skyward Kick or something if you cared enough - which you shouldn't, because that level of thought almost certainly didn't go into a single animation), but I imagine it'd be catastrophic enough that there wouldn't be much macroscopic life left on the planet.

I have to agree. The AI in this game is pretty poor. Even in 3.02 I'm having Zahua wander off to aggro random mobs. Even Sagani was doing it in Endless Paths level 7, because the AI doesn't realise there's a wall between the current enemies and another group. Sometimes it makes combat worse, but it's necessary to have scripts on Aggressive because otherwise fighting through trash mobs (the elimination of which was a design objective, incidentally) becomes a slog. The best AI I have ever seen in a video game is Guild Wars. There's a hell of a lot of skills, but because characters are limited to 8, it makes AI doable. It's a different situation in PoE, however, particularly for some classes. Think of all the abilities Hiravias or Durance have. And the extra level of complication due to abilities added by items. Although enemy AI can and should be this good because their abilities are limited, I don't think it's possible to to get PC and companion AI this good - nor is it necessarily desirable. Having the player AI too good would remove all element of challenge from the game. Having it too poor is frustrating. So what's the solution? The solution is, of course, custom AI scripts, which are not a new idea - several people above have mentioned Dragon Age. These can remove the "slog" element without trivialising combat completely - writing an effective script requires a deep understanding of the game's combat, and there's no way that a player-written AI script can deal with every possible situation. It also allows players to entirely customise the level of micromanagement that they want to do in combat. Eliminating prewritten AI scripts (for player characters, not enemies) in favour of custom scripts should be a top priority for a sequel, IMO.

bump - would still like to know whether this is fixable!

I don't know that the player is qualified to make that kind of a judgement, particularly if they have been traipsing round with someone like Durance, who also proudly participated in the purges.